Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/61

 And I become a nursling soft and pure, An infant cradled on its mother's knee, Without a past, love -cherished and secure; Which if it saw this loathsome present Me, Would plunge its face into the pillowing breast And scream abhorrence hard to lull to rest.

He turned to grope; and I retiring brushed Thin shreds of gossamer from off my face, And mused, His life would grow, the germ uncrushed; He should to antenatal night retrace, And hide his elements in that large womb Beyond the reach of man-evolving Doom.

And even thus, what weary way were planned, To seek oblivion through the far-off gate Of birth, when that of death is close at hand! For this is law, if law there be in Fate: What never has been, yet may have its when; The thing which has been, never is again.

The mighty river flowing dark and deep, With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep, Is named the River of the Suicides;